The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2018-02-04 19:08
I don't know the answer to your question. I do suspect that there is an important difference between "getting him to repeatedly breathe out" and the sustained exhalation against resistance that's involved in playing a clarinet. But I don't know how the doctor actually had him breathe to induce the seizure. And an important question, which the doctor certainly asked, would be whether or not the "absences" occur only when he's playing clarinet or under other circumstances as well.
But I did have an experience last year in which a member of a youth band I conduct, a high school girl who has been playing saxophone since elementary school, had a petit mal seizure (just blanked out - became completely unresponsive sitting in her chair for a little under a minute) during a rehearsal. It was the first time it had happened to her while a member of this band. The boy sitting next to her first alerted me while it was happening, and a very short while later she just came out of it, seeming a little dazed but otherwise unharmed. It wasn't until after rehearsal when I told her dad what had happened that I learned she had a history of such seizures (I think what you describe as "absences"), was being treated by a physician and was taking medication to regulate it.
I pass this on because, while there wasn't and still isn't any concern (or, apparently, even consideration) on the parent's or the girl's part that playing the saxophone had *caused* the seizure, there didn't seem to be any question of her continuing to play. She enjoys playing, the seizures are very occasional, not regular events, not particularly dangerous in a musical setting (as opposed to driving a car, which she was not yet old enough to do). From that brief post-rehearsal conversation we had I suspect, if asked directly, their answer would have been that any causal link would be irrelevant, that the benefits of music performance for this girl far outweighed any small risk to her overall wellbeing.
That's of course not a medical opinion - maybe there are long term health risks to continuing seizures that would argue more strongly for avoiding any possible triggers that can be identified. Your research may answer that question more definitively.
Once the correct level of meds is established, the seizures, if not the underlying epileptic condition itself, may cease to be an issue going forward.
Karl
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Elifix |
2018-02-04 16:19 |
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kdk |
2018-02-04 19:08 |
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zhangray4 |
2018-02-04 21:03 |
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kdk |
2018-02-04 21:29 |
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zhangray4 |
2018-02-04 21:25 |
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Ursa |
2018-02-05 01:09 |
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Elifix |
2018-02-06 16:33 |
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